


There Was Once A Time

by TheAzureLush



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Depending!, Drabble, Gen, Honestly just a mess of nostalgia, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Mild Pre-Hasetsu Feelings, Reflection, maybe to be continued
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 17:46:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9134599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAzureLush/pseuds/TheAzureLush
Summary: The young were always hopeful in the face of a life that would never go easy on them.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all! 
> 
> I'm very excited to start writing in fandom. Let's all be friends! 
> 
> I had a great deal of inspiration for Yakov this morning, and this little drabble is a result. I feel like Yakov dealt with a bit of a learning curve when first pitching himself into the world of coaching. To worry about your own mistakes showing up in a pupil so late along the path can be frustrating.
> 
> Enjoy! 
> 
> ~~~

After seventy years, the rise and fall of a star was still like a water-drop on the ice. Fleeting and beautiful, their collision was so bombastic, and so impactful, that every time a star fell again into the shadows, it would be equally as shocking when another one rose from its stilling ripple. In dancing, in skating, in the budding empire of a film star, or the debut song of a musical prodigy, this was always and would always be the same.

It is the great honor of the teacher to be met in skill by their pupils, but a greater one to be surpassed by them, and the time had passed when Yakov Feltsman may have felt the immature sting of jealousy from something as beautiful as a rising star. 

Feltsman had hardly been an amateur skater in his youth, and by the time that his joints could no longer take the strain of a jump, and his breath had become short by the end of a program, he had long since replaced skating in competitions with skating and mentoring. It was difficult to recall at what point he supposed that living vicariously through his students wasn't all that terrible. With due irritation, Yakov would be the last to admit that his memory at some points escaped him. 

What Yakov did remember, was that when Viktor Nikiforov first crossed the threshold of his studio, it would only take a week before he knew that the boy would be a much larger water-drop than the rest. Viktor had everything from personal charm and beauty to technical talent, and what he lacked in a supportive family, he made up for tenfold in sheer rebellious drive. 

Keeping this in mind, it was a careful ordeal to balance Viktor's awareness of talent with assuming and overconfidence. He was not Yakov's first prodigy and with luck, he wouldn't be the last either. Students had a funny habit of assuming themselves so unique that their teachers wouldn't know their type to the core.

 _“You can think so highly of yourself when you win gold”_ , he often recalled himself saying, and Viktor did too. 

Somewhere in that boy was a wild thirst for recognition that was not uncommon in performers. In the beginning of their relationship, Yakov worried, yes worried, that Viktor's lust for being put out there would come through in a slew of negative habits. It was because of this that he didn't see his relentlessly strict methods as a failing. Too many skaters he had been too gentle with in his own youth had been let down roughly enough to shatter when, for one reason or the next, they fell out of love with their trade. Profound melancholy was one thing, alcoholism was another, and as a teacher in the arts, Yakov saw both in excess. It was enough to make a man go grey.

The young were always hopeful in the face of a life that would never go easy on them. Viktor was no exception, and from one gold medal to the next, Yakov continued to be floored by his talent, and in turn frustrated by his immaturity. It was something that never quite did leave him.

_'Dasvidaniya, indeed. Tell it to yourself.'_

After all, there was more to being a coach than knowing how to skate. It was one thing for Viktor to distract himself from his own work, numbed as it had become, but it was another entirely to make childish assumptions and ignorantly put another skater's career in danger. This was a whim and a selfish one. Yakov knew a thing or two about premature trysts and how they ended, and for one competitive skater to chase, pining, after another? For a long minute, the old coach would sit in the Pulkovo with his thin lips pursed tightly enough to chap themselves. 

Viktor may not have been his first great skater, but that didn't mean much.


End file.
